Software reliability modeling accounting for program size variation due to integration or design changes
J. D. Musa, A. Iannino · 1981
Estimation of software reliability quantities has traditionally been on stable systems; i.e., systems that are completely integrated and are not undergoing design changes. Also, it is assumed that test results are completely inspected for failures. This paper describes a method for relaxing the foregoing conditions by adjusting the lengths of the intervals between failures experienced in tests as compensation. The resulting set of failure intervals represents the set that would have occured for a stable system in its final configuration with complete inspection. The failure intervals are then processed as they would be for a complete system. The approach is developed for the execution time theory of software reliability, but the concepts could be applied to many other models the estimation of quantities of interest to the software manager are illustrated.